Slightly by accident, the last two weeks have shown me a variety of scales of new manufacturing processes all centered around CNC routing... This technology may be unfamiliar to many of you but it is actually been around since the early 90's and is responsible for many wood products you have bought (including basically every IKEA product you). A CNC router is basically a toothed drill that can move on a the x,y,and z and is controlled by a computer model.
So basically you can draw a rectangle representing a sheet of wood in the computer... draw holes, designs, and shapes in it... out a piece of board in the cnc bed... hit go and the drill quickly cuts along these lines... minutes later you have incredibly precise pieces of wood that can be used for buildings, furniture, etc.
Over the last two weeks I was able to see this technology employed in three different innovative ways.
I actually was exposed to these companies and their technologies in order from largest to smallest technology but I am actually gonna explain it smallest to biggest.
This furniture company is really one of a kind, innovative, and philosophically beautiful. Basically It is a shop with a cnc router machine and a stack of wood. Unlike Ikea and most other modern furniture producers this company has not moved to the suburbs or outsourced. They have no warehouse, but rather operate in the spirit of the arts and crafts movement (the name of the store is after a John Ruskin Essay). Basically they make their furniture at a rapid rate using only the cnc router to cut the shapes, and then while they cut the second job, they assemble the first. The result is well crafted and designed furniture that is made to order. Because they can produce high quality furniture so quickly they don't need to store things. You walk into the store... look at their menu of products... and they are ready the next day.
The relationship to the arts and crafts movement and sustainability is thus: They are able to be located in the middle of cities because they only need a small affordable space since no storage is needed. Most of their business is walkins. They save materials due to the precision of the router. Ordered locally... shipped locally. Its a beautiful process and the company is having a lot of success in London as there products are sustainable and affordable. Its tempting to drop out and open a business like this in Brooklyn... a certain success.
This architecture firm builds buildings using only a cnc. They developed a structurally resilient wooden building module scaled to be carried by one person. They developed computer scripts which allow them to easily program their module to any building design. They cnc each module, cutting out holes for pipes, electrical, doors, windows etc. They also cnc a label into each piece so they know how the modules connect. So currently the modules are all assembled in the architecture firm, sent to site on a single truck bed, and assemble without cranes (because they are sized so they can be carried by a single person). Rather than constructing stud walls on site (each board individually saw cut and adjusted to fit... potentially wasting lots of material) the pieces are just assemble like a puzzle.
The firms ultimate goal is even more innovative. They want to actually just sell small developers designs... and then they ship them a container to the building site that is full of wood and a single cnc router. The modules are constructed on site based on a digital 3D model made by the firm. Pretty wild thinking and it really could revolutionize home construction.
This was probably my favorite of the three technologies (primarily because it has the most radical effect on design and construction processes. The processes uses cnc in a similar way to the other two technologies however it does it a much larer scale. First, the cross-laminate timber. Cross-lamination basically is laying a bunch of boards next to each other in the x direction, then laying boards on top of this in the y direction, repeating this process till you have a stack of wood the size of a 18 wheeler bed and the thickness of a wall or floor. The wood is then pressed and what you end up with is a slab of wood that is incredibly structurally resilient (basically as strong as concrete). What differs it from concrete is that it is slab of wood. It doesn't require formwork or pouring and can be made of site. These large slabs of wood then have utility spaces, windows, and doors cnced out and then shipped to site. Upon site these slabs can be lifted by crane in the form of whole facades and floors of buildings by a single movable crane and then screwed into place by a small crew of carpenters.
Again this is incredibly sustainable since no waste is generated in the construction process, an entire floor of a building can be assembled in a day, and the wood can be reused or recycled after the building becomes out of date. The architectural implications are brilliant. Wall sections are now just a single material as the precision of the cnc process allows for air tight spaces that need not air spaces or additional material for insulation.
All of these materials are inherently sustainable because they use litter power of chemicals in construction and all utilize wood. Of course are forest are valuable, however they can be regrown. Wood is the most sustainable building material on our planet. It has been phased out of the last century due to fascination with new materials, fire risks (now marginal due to new innovations in timber treatment and assembly), and the popular slogan "save the trees!" Obviously trees are critical to our survival on this planet (more now than ever), however, trees can be regrown, and most of the other resources on are planet are not only not renewable but they produce epic amounts of C02 when they are harvested. For example Concrete produces tons of C0s as part of its production and curing, while wood actually stores C02. Similar to the way that we store used uranium in mountains... you can imagine trees storing taking C02 out of the atmosphere and then they are harvest and turned into buildings. Technically wooden buildings are like C02 vaults. Its a different way of looking at things but if we all become Johnny Appleseeds... this could really significantly improve our planet and the way we build.
This must be my longest post to date, but obviously I am excited to share any of this that you are willing to read.
Learning about cutting edge technologies like this is the primary reason I came to London. Things like this give me hope that our planet still has a chance.
Enjoy and Cheers!
